Fennel Creek trail construction given the go-ahead

The Bonney Lake City Council approved two resolutions authorizing construction on the Fennel Creek Trail, but costs came in higher than expected.

During the Feb. 19 council workshop, City Engineer John Woodcock said the city has two options for the 95th Street Bypass project, a trail segment that connects the southern 2A segment with the future northern 2B segment via a roughly 1,000-foot connector that touches Angeline Road: either use wooden materials for a retaining wall, or concrete.

Both options, he continued, put the city over the $1.7 million it already budgeted for the project, and come with their own pros and cons.

The low bid for the project, from Brumfield Construction, came in at $1.94 million. This included making the retaining wall out of wood. With a 10 percent contingency and estimated construction management costs, the total bid package was around $2.2 million.

However, the Washington State Department of Transportation said if the city uses a wooden retaining wall, Bonney Lake would be required to maintain it, according to Woodcock, adding that the wall has an expected 20-year life span.

An alternate bid from Roglin’s Incorporated came in for $2.22 million, with the retaining wall being made of concrete. If the city went with this option, the DOT said it would take on the maintenance of this wall, which has a 50-plus year life span.

With contingency and management costs, the total bid package ended around $2.6 million.

“We hope it will be lower, because we hope to not use the contingency, and we hope we won’t need to use all of the construction management dollars,” city Facilities and Special Project Manager Gary Leaf said in an email interview.

After a brief discussion, the city council voted unanimously to approve Roglin’s Incorporated bid package and the concrete retaining wall, which means taking an extra $900,000 from the city’s parks budget.

“This means we will need to defer or stretch out the timeline for our other park projects, namely Fennel Creek Trail and Allan Yorke Park Phase 1 (i.e. the new ballfield and other related improvements),” Leaf said. “There is a possibility of asking the Council in 2020 and/or 2021 to use General Fund dollars to help with those two projects if we aren’t successful in reducing the costs of the other projects.”

Woodcock said it’s hard to say when construction will begin, but the project is expected to take about 140 working days to complete.